


Duty

by Shadow_Belle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: AU, F/M, GoT Exchange 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Belle/pseuds/Shadow_Belle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a young girl, Catelyn learned a hard lesson in the value of duty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Buriedbooks](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Buriedbooks).



Duty had been good to her, Catelyn Stark thought as she watched her husband over their evening meal. He chewed his food carefully and thank the Seven quietly, with as much stoic reserve as he did everything else. Each grinding motion of his jaw was a planned attack on his mutton, every bite was with purpose.

It was a small thing to be thankful for, the fact that her husband of many moons chewed with his mouth closed, but living with someone, it was the small things that made a marriage bearable. Happy, even. Yes, happy because she loved him.

When Catelyn was younger, she’d thought it was about the rush of blood through her veins, the tingling beneath her smallclothes and a comely face. She’d thought it was about golden hair and the veneer of knightly virtue. She’d thought if she threw away her duty, it would be like the songs. Because weren’t the maidens fair rescued from cold duty by the handsome knight?

She’d told her parents she was in love with Brandon because it was what was expected of her. Catelyn decided she would love him because he was handsome and strong. Until Jaime Lannister had come to Riverrun upon his father’s command.

He’d been a storybook knight come to warm and golden life. He wasn’t a man yet, but he was no longer a boy. They were already calling him the Lion of Lannister.

She pushed the lemoncake around on her plate, but it held no interest for her aside from the fact her little Sansa loved them so much. Catelyn smiled to remember it, being pregnant with her. That was all she’d wanted to eat then. She’d grown so fat, eating only lemoncakes and cream, but it was all she could keep down.

“Not hungry?” Ned frowned at her. “Eat more, woman. I’ll not lose you when winter comes because of maidenly nonsense about your hips.”

She gave her husband a soft smile. “We have lemoncakes so rarely these days. I’d rather save it for Sansa. You know how she loves them.”

“You used to love them,” he said, his voice stern, but not unkind.

“I know. I was just thinking about that.”

Ned brushed his fingers over her hand briefly in a quick caress before he turned his attention back to his plate. These northerners let nothing interfere with their food. She supposed after all this time, she was a northerner too. Her children were northerners, part of this cold, hard and unforgiving place.

But she wasn’t. Her heart was here with this man, with her children, but her soul was always somewhere green.

The king’s entourage would arrive today and with it, Jaime Lannister. She hadn’t seen him since he’d left Riverrun and pledged himself to the Kingsguard and for that, she was thankful. Catelyn wasn’t sure if she wanted to see him now.

In those first years, she’d been so hungry for his face, the sound of his voice. His touch. Dear gods, his touch… Even though he’d used her like she was nothing but a tavern girl, he’d made her body sing.

But she’d only been an experiment. There was some other woman who held his heart. He’d wanted to see if mating with her was like it was with the other woman, if the pleasure was the same. If it could transcend love, that release and exchange of fluid.

An experiment that had left Catelyn with something initially unwanted, but still beautiful. She was lucky that Sansa had her Tully coloring, not so lucky that she had her Tully temperament. Tully passions ran high and hot. Her sister disgraced with an unwanted babe and married off to Jon Arryn. If her parents had ever discovered what had happened between her and Jaime Lannister the shame of it might have killed them where they stood.

Catelyn remembered their first kiss. It had been in the orchard, among the lemon trees. She’d climbed too high, knowing her septa would have apoplexy if she could see the Lady Catelyn in breeches in a tree like some wild animal, scrambling for a juicier fruit. A branch had broken and she’d tumbled down not to the ground, but into Jaime’s arms. He’d rescued her like a true knight should.

It had been the most natural thing in the world to wrap her arm around his neck and tilt her face up to his. His golden hair curled over her fingers, glinting warm beneath the sun. His skin smooth and perfect, tanned from time training outside. His fingers were hot, burning through her clothes to sear the skin beneath in places Brandon had never tried to touch.

She whispered her thank yous as a Lady should and he’d taken his favor there beneath the leaves with the taste of lemons on both their lips.

Her girl’s heart had fluttered until it burst with the chivalry and romanticism of it all.

Catelyn closed her eyes against the memory. She’d never given a thought to poor Lysa. Jaime was to marry her.

And Catelyn was to marry Brandon. But in that moment, she’d dreamed up scenarios of where Jamie would carry her off in his golden armor and they’d ride away on his white horse. Songs would be sung of his bravery, and how true their love.

She looked at her husband again and was pleased to note that she loved him not with a girl’s heart, but with a woman’s. Catelyn wished she could stop thinking about Jaime today, but knowing she was going to see him had ruptured the floodgates and all the memories she’d kept bottled up for so long spilled forward. If she didn’t channel them somehow, they’d spill over the banks revealing secrets she never intended to share.  
Catelyn wondered if Jaime would see himself in their daughter, or if she only hoped he would.

She didn’t know if he’d even remember _her_. And after all this time, did it matter?

The thing she hated about memories was that they were like starving boars, ripping and tearing at her peace of mind.

She remembered when Jaime had slipped in her room, had kissed her again, but this time with the passion of a man grown. She’d been so caught up in the feelings, the sensation, the pleasure of his mouth, she didn’t realize what was happening until he tore her bride’s gift.

Then he’d explained everything very calmly to her, about what he needed to know and how she’d forever be in his heart as the one who’d shown him these things. He’d left her dazed and startled, the magic pink veil over her childhood gone with her woman’s veil.

So she’d done the only thing she could think of to do. She’d sent for Brandon. Begged his forgiveness. He’d said she wasn’t to blame and had come to marry her straight away. And she’d found in that moment, the love she’d said she felt for him was there. He was a true knight.

And he’d died.

Catelyn had made no fuss when they offered her to Eddard. The shy, quiet boy with the dark hair and pretty gray eyes. He wasn’t considered the catch Brandon had been, but he was strong. Solid. And sure. She could see in him then the stone of the man he would become. Eddard himself was much like the Wall. He wasn’t very pretty to look at as a whole, but there were pieces of him that were stunning. So much so it hurt to look. Like his eyes with the quiet acceptance of her and all she brought to the marriage. Even the babe in her belly.

When she’d tried to tell him it wasn’t Brandon’s, he’d said not to speak of it further. If she didn’t speak, no one would ever know of it. The words would die in her throat and with it, the echo of them into the thread of the world.

She’d spent hours upon hours on her knees praying her child to be a girl. A Stark must always be in Winterfell and Jaime’s son would be no Stark.

When the Seven had answered her prayers, she’d devoted her life to them. To her husband. To the duty that would have kept her safe and perhaps even those she’d loved. It was why she ground those lessons into Sansa. Why she tried to drive them into Arya, but though Arya looked like a Stark, she too was Catelyn to the very core. The Catelyn she’d been before Ser Jaime Lannister.

Catelyn bit her lip as she felt the darkness gather around her again and she whispered a prayer to the Mother. She knew winter was coming and the anticipation and tension that wrought in Winterfell, but there was something else. Something that would come with the king on raven’s wings.

“Catelyn,” Ned said after he’d finished his last bite. “You know the king’s entourage will be here in a few hours.”

“Yes?”

“Robert wishes to betroth Joffrey and Sansa.”

She should have been elated. Her daughter would be a princess. A queen. But that dark feeling erupted in a fountain, filling her veins.

“And have you answered him?”

“Aye, wife. Would you have me refuse the king?”

She would at that. But she kept her mouth closed. It was their duty to obey their king and Catelyn Stark had learned the value of duty.


End file.
